


Time Will Come and Take My Love Away

by Falt



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series), Vampire: The Masquerade
Genre: Friendship, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 06:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19458679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falt/pseuds/Falt
Summary: Technically no spoilers, but warnings nonetheless for episodes 3.5 and beyond. You know, just in case.The coterie deals with the loss of a friend.





	Time Will Come and Take My Love Away

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is brought to you by this morning's power outage at my building that forced me to pick up a book, which in turn finally inspired me.
> 
> This fic is also brought to you by my attempts to preemptively cope with what is, in my current opinion, inevitable. I hope to god I'm wrong.

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate

That Time will come and take my love away.

This thought is as a death which cannot choose

But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

\--William Shakespeare, Sonnet XLIV

Annabelle sits on a deserted beach in the dead of night, arms wrapped around her legs which are bent to her chest as she looks out over the gentle waves. The air is cool with a gentle breeze that flutters through her hair. A few strands stick to the nearly dry red streaks painting her cheeks. She gave no thought to wiping them away.

She had known there would be casualties in this war for which she had advocated. For the life (death) of her, she cannot think of the reason for the naïve belief that every one of her friends would survive. Perhaps she never believed it at all. Perhaps it’s the shock that, of everyone promised to this impending conflict, that Jasper was the first. 

Fingernails dig into her palms, enough to draw blood. The scent of Kindred vitae mingles with the salty breeze. Guilt rises up in her throat. And really, she should have known what would happen. This isn’t the first time someone had died from a cause she was leading. This is simply the first time that the life lost was not her own.

\--

Nelli sits in her studio, cutting and pinning fabric to a mannequin in a bid to distract herself by getting ahead on her next collection. The fabric refuses to drape properly, the darts won’t lay, and after fiddling with it for twenty minutes her temper gets the best of her. A cry of frustration and the tearing of fabric breaks the silence and she collapses into the elegant armchair situated in the far corner of the room, nearest the window looking out over the moonlit landscape of the Valley.

She’d never been his friend. They had never gotten along. Not the first time he had shown up in Abrams’ domain, and certainly not any time thereafter. They were polar opposites. But she thought about every time they’d protected each other, every bantered remark. Perhaps not friends, but combative siblings willing to die for each other one moment and tear each other’s throats out the next. A respect for one another that transcended any notion of friendship.

She stands, going to a cabinet filled with neatly organized bolts of fabric. She pulls out a sample of black damask and goes to her drafting table, drawing and cutting the bones of a functional yet elegant suit that perhaps he might have worn one day.

\--

Victor sits in his office, leaning back into his leather desk chair, headphones pumped to a volume that wouldn’t be healthy for mortal ears. He sits with his eyes closed, having given all staff instructions to stay away unless it was an absolute emergency and leaving Campbell in charge.

Jasper had been the first Nosferatu with whom he’d truly become acquainted. From their introduction he’d tried to shield himself from stereotypes about that clan, trying to convey to Jasper that he didn’t care about appearances, that he valued their friendship. And he worries now that his friend had died not believing any of it; he worries that Jasper thought he was teasing or condescending; he regretted any intrusion on Jasper’s privacy; he thinks about every argument they’d ever had. But more than anything Victor hopes that, in spite of everything else, Jasper knew how much he’d meant to him.

Victor loses track of how long he sits there until the end of the playlist shakes him from his reverie. He sighs, removing the headphones and setting them on the desk. His hands flex, and a fraction of a second later the headphones are on the floor, cracked from the force of the throw.

\--

Eva paces through his library, having come after receiving the news, carefully letting herself in the way Jasper had shown her nights before. She’s no stranger to grief, but it hurts immensely all the same. Logic tells her that there is no note, nothing to indicate last wishes, but she looks all the same. All she finds is a dried rose that looks suspiciously familiar and a photo of Chloe, neatly placed in a drawer.

She wards both entrances that she knows of to his lair, ensuring that no one will be able to enter and impede upon his privacy, even in his final death. She makes the trip to see Chloe. She thinks that it’s only fitting that it falls to her to let Chloe know such news, but she can’t find it in her heart to feel bitter. It’s one final favor.

She and Chloe sit with one another, the room silent except for an occasional sniffle and the dull patter of rain coming from outside.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the cast and crew of L.A. by Night for such a wonderful story.
> 
> Comments and gentle criticism are, as always, very welcome.


End file.
